The recent revival of David Mamet's A Life In The Theatre stands out for many reasons. It was one of the edgy playwright's earliest works, one that is more sentimental and relatively epithet-free. It is an intimate show that would work well in a small repertory house, yet stars Patrick Stewart and T.R. Knight, who imbued it with a larger-than-life quality that allowed it to thrive in a larger Broadway house. And its hilarious exposé of backstage life – specifically an older actor mentoring and berating a younger compatriot in a low-budget regional theatre – gave Tony Award-winning scenic designer Santo Loquasto the opportunity to apply his magic and make things look far simpler than they were. Behind the Scenes
Loquasto notes that, as written, Mamet's show is comprised of 26 scenes, which take place everywhere from various backstage areas to viewpoints from onstage, looking out to the "audience" located upstage. The designer had the challenge of creating everything from simple set pieces like dressing rooms to more involved pieces like a Civil War battlement scene. But it was all taken from the actors' point-of-view. "The premise as written is that they're all upstage looking out towards the auditorium, which was fun to do," says Loquasto. "It is rather effective, I must say – the backstage look."
The constant backdrop present in the show is a proscenium arch with a black mesh scrim hanging over it, with "balcony lights" in the background to give the feeling of looking out into the theatre, and thus giving the audience the idea of what the actors are going through right in front of them. "Behind the black scrim is what I call hanger, which makes up the lights that form the balcony rail, your front of house lights and little practical lights on the balcony," explains Loquasto. "It's very shallow back there, and it's [enhanced by] the way that [lighting designer] Ken Posner just kisses it with light."
Mamet's play certainly echoes the experiences that Loquasto has had working with various repertory companies and stock houses, from the low-grade effects to squabbling among talent. He believes that Mamet handled such shenanigans with uncharacteristic poignancy. "It is a more sentimental piece than you ever would think David Mamet would put together."
With regards to these sets, they were comprised of "steel and wood and the usual elements of the use on scenery nowadays," says Loquasto. "There's always a lot of steel because it's faster and cheaper, believe it or not." Most of the brick wall was made of plastic, even though there is a real brick wall in the venue, but this was a logistical choice. "We made things out a lot of old crates and bits that I had brought in from the loading dock and the scene shop. It has more character to it."
The most challenging set piece that Loquasto tackled was a boat stranded at sea. Both actors sat in it, with wooden waves "rolling" nearby, and the boat titled back and forth on an axis like a teeter totter, driven by the pumping leg motions of the actors. The boat was a fun piece for which the designer took time to work out the height so that the actors were comfortable with it.
Loquasto explains that throughout the rehearsal process, set pieces were tweaked and modified to satisfy the actors and director. "The piece that became both the battlements and the interior of the Southern mansion for the Civil War scene wasn't really hard, but a lot of this is stuff that I do, as it were. At the last season at Stratford, for example, I did Cyrano, and [for this show] I dipped into how that had worked in reviving a stair unit that would take on life and vitalize general backstage life, so they could run down and leave the theatre at night. It just energizes the scenes. We were pretty strict about where things were in our plan, whether or not the audience knew it or not, so we weren't arbitrary about where the exit to the building was. The challenge was mostly just efficiency; fast enough to keep the piece moving alone. It wasn't so much individual scenes. You try to do the scenes without having a lot of elements; keeping it minimal and still romantic enough to serve the piece."
His favorite backstage scene was an intimate scene in a room with the leads seated on an easy chair and a wicker hamper. "They just sit. It had enough of a sculptural weight to it to hold the stage down." Indeed, the play often used minimal sets that implied a larger space, and the performances by the leads were integral to its success. But scenic and lighting reinforcement helped to create the illusion. "What's very hard is that you have no other actors, so [it's about] how you deal with it – like in the Civil War scene, which implies [through shadows and sound] that there is a cotillion going on onstage, and he [Knight] is waiting to join the party."
Despite the fact this was a straight play with two leads and two or three stagehands who actually "performed" by making crossovers on stage – one even threw leaves through a window during an awkwardly performed Chekov scene – it was still a challenge in terms of time, money and resources. Loquasto admitted that this show was a little rushed, but "summer productions get to be like this." He was away working in Stratford, Ontario, and director Neil Pepe was on vacation with his family.
"When we managed to meet on a more intense basis, it was probably for a month or five weeks, and then there were a lot of financial issues," recalls Loquasto. "As little as there is, it took a while to get it down to where it was affordable. So that always extends the process, unfortunately. It's very elemental. It was probably more elaborate initially, and then it got better as I made it tighter with fewer elements, sort of what I call ‘shuffling the cards.' The flats would just roll across the stage, and it was reconfigured slightly. It helped to make it more, for lack of a better word, stylish, because of that."
The designer says that the biggest challenge of working on A Life In The Theatre was dealing with the finances. "I know that's not very artistic," he remarks with a laugh, "but trying to find a way to make it affordable [was tough]. It was very hard because there are certain elements that you have to allow the storytelling to be effective, and it was how many men and women on the stage it took to move things around. We didn't want it to be like a musical, where it was all gliding around you. It's about the crew in a funny way, as well as the actors. It's the fiber of backstage life, and they [the crew] were good at committing to it. Some of them were slightly self-conscious, but some of them not so self-conscious. It was amazing how they could do their crossovers, scratch their heads and get on with things."
When asked if he learned something new working on A Life In The Theatre, Loquasto quipped, "I learned that chairs never stay under the tables the way you hope they would. There are some nights that they work perfectly and some nights that they don't. But I would've said that in 1967, too. Wretched palettes are always going to be wretched palettes."
Unlike the recent A Chorus Line revival, this 1970s show was not done as a retro piece. But Loquasto jokes that he did not need to do any research into that era anyway because he's already very familiar with it. "I used to kid Neil Pepe about the fact that that's why he wanted me around, that I had done all these plays that they were mocking."
Another funny thing that the scenic designer remembers is the fussing over the hospital scene, because of Knight's experience on the Grey's Anatomy television series. "T.R. knew what he was used to in a theatrical operating room, so there had to be the gloves he wanted, and they had to be easy to take off. It was funny. In terms of getting it all together, that scene went on longer than I would've expected." Ultimately, Loquasto said he dealt with a "marvelous group" of talent and crew. "Neil Pepe is level and good-natured. The mutual trust is always appreciated."
